The Procurement Process: A First Accessibility Checkpoint

For colleges and universities, every technology purchasing decision is an opportunity to create a more accessible and user-centered digital experience for students, faculty, and staff while setting the standard for inclusion before anyone ever logs in or clicks through.

By treating procurement as the first accessibility checkpoint rather than a compliance exercise, higher education institutions can apply Shift Left principles to reduce risk, improve digital experiences, and guarantee accessibility is built into technology investments from the very beginning.

Why Procurement Is an Accessibility Issue

Procurement decisions have a direct and lasting impact on an institution's accessibility outcomes. Colleges and universities should establish accessibility as a core purchasing requirement from the beginning of the procurement process. This is especially important given the wide range of third-party digital tools higher education institutions routinely acquire, including learning management systems, student information systems, library databases, publisher platforms, and SaaS applications.

For example:

In EDUCAUSE's last published SIS dashboard analysis (2023), Ellucian products accounted for 57% of reported SIS market share, with Banner Student alone representing 37%. Oracle PeopleSoft Campus Solutions accounted for approximately 21%, and Ellucian Colleague Student for approximately 16%.
In 2025, Tambellini Group reported In 2014, only 1% of all historical student system selections were for SaaS-architected solutions. By the end of 2024, 30% of all historical student system selections were SaaS-architected solutions.

The accessibility implications of these purchases can be significant. A single Student Information System can affect registration, financial aid, advising, and academic records for tens of thousands of students.

Shift Left Starts During RFP Development

Accessibility procurement begins long before vendors submit proposals. A true Shift Left approach starts during RFP development, where accessibility must be treated as a core requirement.

Here are key steps for creating an accessibility-first RFP:

Involve at least one accessibility professional throughout the entire procurement lifecycle, from needs assessment and technical specifications to proposal requirements, vendor evaluations, and final selection.
Ensure your accessibility policy is up to date, visible on your website, and consistent with applicable regulations and institutional goals.
Clearly define your institution's accessibility expectations by incorporating relevant standards such as WCAG and Section 508, along with any federal, state, or institutional requirements. These expectations should be contractual and enforceable, and not aspirational.
Require ALL vendors to provide a current Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR), typically delivered via a completed Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT), that documents how their product conforms to accessibility standards.
- Highlight and log any items marked Partially Supports and Does Not Support. Those can be determining factors in vendor selection and / or checkpoints to be further investigated and evaluated.

Note: If you are requiring Section 508 compliance as well, please read Understanding Vendor Claims in Accessibility Conformance Reports for Section 508 Conformance found on the Section508 website.

💡Pro Tip: To help streamline your process and improve consistency, consider developing standardized RFP templates that include approved accessibility language, evaluation criteria, and compliance requirements. Make sure to schedule regular reviews with your accessibility team to help ensure those templates remain aligned with evolving standards, regulations, and industry best practices, reducing institutional compliance and operational risks while supporting more consistent and accessible procurement outcomes.

You’ll find a list of pre-prepared sample language you can cut and paste into your procurement documents on the Section 508 website article titled Define Accessibility Criteria in Contracts.

Vendor Evaluation Process

The vendor evaluation process is one of the most important accessibility checkpoints in procurement. It should be a formal and documented part of the vendor selection process. This is where institutions move past policy statements and verify whether a solution can deliver an inclusive user experience in practice.

These are key considerations when performing a thorough vendor evaluation:

Any vendor making the first cut in the evaluation process must be required to demonstrate conformance with WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 Level AA requirements, as well as any applicable Section 508 standards. Providing a proper ACR is the first step in meeting that requirement. The next step would be providing testing and auditing documentation. If not available, your accessibility team will gather that data during their evaluation.

If that information is available, the documentation must include the date of the last test, who performed the test, issues flagged and whether they were remediated, the standards tested against, and descriptions of all testing methodologies used.

Your accessibility team plays a central role in evaluating vendor responses. To support that role, the vendor should provide, at a minimum, a demonstration instance of the product for your accessibility team to perform accessibility auditing and testing, assess known issues, and validate claims.
- Any identified areas of noncompliance should be fully documented, and vendors must submit a remediation plan outlining specific corrective actions, timelines, and estimated completion dates.

This approach makes certain that accessibility risks are detected and resolved before a contract is drawn up, and that accessibility is built into the technology lifecycle from the very beginning, reducing the likelihood of costly remediation efforts.

Bake Accessibility into the Contract

Procurement language is most effective when accessibility is embedded directly into the contract, creating a built-in expectation from the start.

Begin by explicitly requiring conformance to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and any applicable Section 508 standards, making clear that accessibility is a baseline expectation for any solution being considered.
A strong, solid contract goes a step further by defining remediation requirements with specific, enforceable timelines that ensure all identified issues are addressed promptly rather than deferred indefinitely.
Finally, acceptance criteria need to be tied to accessibility, established up front, and used as a condition for final payment, shifting accountability into the procurement lifecycle itself.

When these elements are built into procurement language from the beginning, institutions can move from reactive fixes to a more structured, enforceable approach that supports sustainable accessibility outcomes across campus.

By evaluating accessibility before contracts are signed, institutions can reduce risk, improve compliance, and help ensure equitable access to essential services. Once a vendor has been selected and a contract is in place, colleges and universities often have limited leverage to require accessibility improvements, making procurement one of the most effective opportunities to advance accessibility at scale.

For higher education institutions facing growing compliance expectations and Title II obligations, procurement may be the most effective place to shift accessibility left and create lasting change.

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A human author creates the DubBlog posts. The AI tools Gemini and ChatGPT are sometimes used to brainstorm subject ideas, generate blog post outlines, and rephrase specific sections of content. Our marketing team carefully reviews all final drafts for accuracy and authenticity. The opinions and perspectives expressed remain the sole responsibility of the human author.